The Closet of Savage Mementos (3 page)

Chapter Three

I
watched the quivering lights reflected on the river Liffey while I waited for Robin. We always met on Grattan Bridge – near his flat and my bus stop – and I draped over its low railing, looking at the liver-dark water and the pale, sensuous curve of the Ha’penny Bridge. Even in the dusk light I could make out Robin’s loping form on the quay as he came towards me: he swanked when he walked, just like Verity. He lolloped onto the bridge – a TV cowboy – and performed for me: pelvis jutted out, hand on his hip. I laughed, went forward to meet him and gave him a hug.

‘How are you? Looking good, anyway,’ I said.

He held me away from him. ‘You look good too. For a hippy.’

We walked arm-in-arm along the quay towards The Bachelor Inn for our first drink. Town was busy though it was still early. A coven of women, dressed in matching pink tops, burst out of Liffey Street and ran up the Ha’penny Bridge, screeching. I kept pace with Robin’s long stride and sucked in the exhaust and river stench of the city. In the pub, Robin sat with his back to the wall and I took the high stool opposite him; he winked at the bar girl who took our drinks order.

‘Don’t be giving her false hope,’ I said, and Robin stuck out his tongue. ‘Rob, I went home the other day, to see Verity.’

‘Oh?’ He fiddled with his shirt buttons.

‘Look at you, you have no interest. She keeps saying how much she would love to see you, and that you never ring her, and she might as well not have a son at all.’

‘Stop trying to make me feel guilty.’ Robin flapped his cigarette box at my face.

‘Go and see her. You’re her golden boy; she might listen if you say she has to sort herself out, once and for all.’

‘Maybe.’ Robin bent towards me. ‘Hey, do you remember the time you broke her china jug and the two of us buried it in the bottom of the garden? I was thinking about that yesterday.’

‘Don’t change the subject. And anyway, it wasn’t me who smashed it, it was you.’ I leaned across and thumped his arm.

‘It was
not
. You sent it flying off the table; I remember it well.’

‘God, I’d kind of forgotten about that day. She kept at us and at us until we showed her where we’d hidden the bits.’

‘Then she locked us under the stairs. Good old Verity and her brilliant parenting.’ Robin sipped his drink and looked around the pub.

‘I thought Anthony was going to kill her when he found us locked in there. Do you remember the way he shook her? She was pissed, of course, but the way he rattled her, I was sure her head was going to fall off. I thought he was furious with us too.’

‘Verity was always fucking mad when you think about it. It’s no wonder we’re both nuts,’ Robin said.

‘Speak for yourself, I’m perfectly sane. She was loopers, all right. Still is.’ I looked over my shoulder. ‘Why do you keep looking past me when I talk? It’s driving me mad. Are you expecting someone?’

‘No, Little Miss Narky, I’m looking for talent.’

‘Seen any?’

‘No. What were we saying?’

‘About Verity being a crap mother. And a lush.’

‘Aw, poor Mumsy.’

‘Poor Mumsy, my hole. She’s a fucking consequence. You never go near her, so you don’t have to deal with it.’ I took a long swallow of beer. ‘I’ve gone to her house and found her passed out on the floor twice already this year. She’s going to end up dead.’

‘With any luck.’ Robin wiggled the ice in the bottom of his glass, then took a slug. ‘I need to get out of here. I’m thinking San Francisco. Where all the girls wear flowers in their hair. And the boys too, hopefully.’

‘San Francisco? What? Where did that come from?’

‘I’ve always wanted to go there.’

‘First I heard of it. Why?’

‘Oh, Lillis, cop on.’ He leaned in and ruffled up my hair. ‘It’s a carnal carnival, man.’

‘Jaysus, keep talking like that and you’ll fit right in. But please don’t come home with some kind of County America accent. That would kill me altogether.’

‘Shut up. You’re just pissed off because you’ll be stuck here forever.’ Robin flipped open his lighter.

‘I won’t, you know. I’ve got a summer job lined up in Scotland.’ I put down my glass.

‘You sneaky bitch. How did you get that? We can’t both go away.’

‘Look, at the moment I
need
your help with Verity. Promise me you’ll go to the house and talk to her. We can head out together.’

‘Lord, you’re so bossy. Is that why you arranged to meet me, to bully me into being our mother’s saviour?’

‘Rob, just say you’ll come with me.’

He held up the palm of one hand. ‘OK, OK, OK. I’m feeling positive, anything is possible. Right, it is official: 1991 will be the year Verity finally stays on the wagon. And I’m going to be the one to heave, throw or shove her onto it. I’ll be Golden Boy ever more and, for once, it’ll be for something I’ve actually done. Yippee.’ Robin clinked his glass against mine and knocked back his drink.

All of the curtains were drawn, giving the house a sleepy, dishevelled look. Robin tapped elaborately on the front door with the Claddagh-ring brass knocker: two arms cradling a crowned heart. I could hear Maxine growling behind the door in her low, yelping way. Opening the letterbox, I curved my finger through and found the string with the key that had hung inside the door since we were kids.

‘Hello Maxine, hello girl,’ I said to the dog, and she stopped whining.

Robin followed me in; the hall smelt stale, like an empty biscuit tin. Maxine couldn’t lift her fat body to greet us; she looked up from her blanket and thumped her tail. She is past it, I thought, looking at her grey muzzle and old-age spread. The whole house was quiet and dark.

‘Verity,’ Robin called; there was no reply.

We went through the sitting room to the kitchen; a cobweb like the sail of a yacht hung from the ceiling over the table. The cobweb wavered as I walked past it to survey the counter, which was a jumble of caked dishes and pots.

‘Jesus, look at this. How does it get so bad so quickly? I was here only last week.’

‘Limerick lace, that’s what they call that.’ Robin pulled the cobweb down and rolled it into a clump.

‘The table’s a mess.’ There was a bowl with rancid butter; hillocks of breadcrumbs; filthy knives and spoons; and plate upon plate with congealed gloops of food.

‘This is squalor,’ Robin said, ‘true, honest-to-God squalor.’

The kitchen smelt exactly like my Granny King’s had, even though Granny’s was always pristine; the smell was sugary like a baker’s shop. My granny used to say, ‘You could eat your dinner off my floor.’ As a child I was never able to answer that because I couldn’t figure out what kind of person would want to eat their meat and potatoes off lino.

I followed Robin back out to the hall; he was peering up into the stairwell.

‘Mam,’ he called. ‘Verity!’ He looked at me and shrugged. ‘We’d better go up,’ he said.

We trundled up the stairs to Verity’s bedroom but she wasn’t there; we came back down and went into her studio. The trappings of her art lay in awkward piles on the bench and on the floor: rolls of chicken wire, bags of plaster, boxes of glass eyes, her cutters. A half-mounted goat showed its open hindquarters to the room. I looked at the clatter of empty bottles on the floor and saw our mother on the chaise longue by the far wall, curled up and shivering.

‘Mam,’ I called, the word emerging on a wail as I went towards her.

‘For fuck’s sake, Verity,’ Robin said, pulling a throw over her and moving the bottles.

‘Anthony?’ she said, thinking he was our father; she managed to sound querulous, even in a whisper.

‘Anthony’s long gone, Mother,’ he said, ‘it’s me, Robin. Lillis is here too.’

‘Aw, Rob,’ she said, in a childish voice, ‘thank God it’s you; I don’t want that fucker of a husband of mine anywhere near me.’

I came into the ward and walked past half a dozen sleeping old women until I found her.

‘Did you bring my good nightdress?’ Verity was propped up in the bed, wearing a hospital gown. I looked at her loose hair and the skin pouched under her chin in flaps. She looks ragged, I thought.

‘Yes, the nightie is in here,’ I said, handing over a plastic bag. ‘What did they say?’ I asked Robin.

‘The usual. She was dehydrated, she has to stop drinking, her foot’s in danger of falling off…’

‘What?’ Verity said.

‘Only joking,’ Robin said. ‘Just making sure you’re
compos mentis
, Mother, that’s all.’

‘I’m not going back into John of God’s, so you needn’t even think it,’ Verity said, pointing at us. ‘It’s a fucking nut-house, full of mad fools. I can’t stand the place.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ I said.

‘No, I won’t keep my voice down, young lady, and don’t tell me to. I’m not going back there, I’m going home.’

‘Whatever you say, Verity,’ Robin said, yawning.

‘And you needn’t tell your father I’m in here. The last thing I want is him foostering about, giving orders and treating me like a child.’

‘He already knows you’re in hospital,’ I said.

‘Well, thank you, Lillis, thank you for that.’

‘It wasn’t Lil who told him, it was me. He likes to know how you are, so I rang him with the latest,’ Robin said.

Verity harrumphed. ‘Can’t he ring
me
if he wants to know how I am? Too busy making a fool of himself with that child he’s with. The darkie.’

‘Mam, stop.’

‘What? Don’t come over all holier-than-thou with me, Robin Yourell. She’s black and their brats are half-caste and that’s telling it like it is.’ Verity cackled. ‘Making a bloody eejit of himself having more kids at his age.’

I tutted. ‘You get worse by the minute, do you know that? You’re like some crackpot hag spitting bile. I don’t know why I expected anything else from you. India is from, guess where?
India
. Via Manchester or some bloody place.’

‘Oh, shut up, Lillis. Nobody wants to hear you. You’ve been a whiner since the day you were born. Whingy, nervy, needy Lillis.’

‘Right, that’s it.’ I grabbed my bag and stood up.

‘What are we going to do with you, Mother?’ Robin said, looking from her to me.

‘Let Lillis go off in a huff, if that’s what she wants. It gets her out of my face. She’s an almighty nag.’

‘She only nags because she cares. You’re wearing her out, Mam.’

‘I’m actually still here you know,’ I said.

‘I don’t ask Lillis to come and visit me – she just turns up. All I want is to be left alone.’ She pulled Robin’s arm, shook it hard and shouted. ‘Why don’t the pair of you just fuck off and leave me alone?’

Robin’s flat was tucked in the basement of a tenement off Capel Street. I sat in a hard-armed chair and watched him make coffee in the kitchenette.

‘I don’t know how you can you live here. Apart from the grime, my knees are nearly in the next room. I feel all closed in, like I’m sitting on a bus.’

Robin swivelled his hip to avoid the counter’s edge and swung back the opposite way quickly, so as not to knock into the door to the bathroom. He sat down and handed me a mug; I wiped the rim with my sleeve before taking a sip.

‘I washed that cup.’

‘Everything about this place is disgusting: it’s a pigsty, a rat-hole.’

‘Thank you for the wonderful animal comparisons, Lillis; personally I like to think of the place as Robin’s Little Nest.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, I won’t be here much longer: San Fran beckons, after all.’ He gulped his coffee. ‘I went home to visit Verity yesterday.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I looked at him.

‘They let her leave the hospital on the condition that she stays dry and goes for counselling once a week. AA too, if she can manage it.’

‘She won’t do AA after the last time.’

‘Verity says that the binge was “brought on” by Bronagh at the gallery. Bronagh hinted that it was getting harder to sell her pieces. She made the mistake of telling Verity she needs to start painting again.’

‘I’d say that went down well.’

‘Apart from the fact that she hates being told what to do, she says she doesn’t want to paint. But, apparently, stuffed animals are a tough sell these days. They’re not PC, so it doesn’t matter how arty-farty or beautiful they look.’ Robin scratched his head. ‘She was wondering aloud when you might be over to see her.’

‘Was she really, now? And will I be abused and screeched at from the minute I walk through the door, do you think?’

‘Of course you will, she can’t help herself. Ah no, she’s feeling sorry for what she said to you at the hospital and even sorrier for her vodka-free self. Will you go?’

I pulled a face at him. ‘I suppose.’

‘I’ll go with you. Moral support and all that.’

Verity had made a Sunday dinner and the house felt fresher than it had in a long time. The sun threw strands of lemon light across the kitchen, heating up the whole room and reminding me of other Sundays. Robin rattled a greeting at Verity and I sat straight down at the table.

‘Don’t I even get a hello?’ Verity said.

‘Hi.’

‘I see, we’re in monosyllabic mode, are we?’ Verity said, turning back to the stove to thrash at a pot of potatoes with a masher.

‘Now, now, Mam, be nice.’ Robin grabbed our mother around the waist and kissed her cheek; she smiled at him and began ladling the dinner onto plates. We ate in silence for a while, the food and the sun’s rays warming us.

‘This is lovely,’ I said, ‘thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Verity said, chewing slowly on a small piece of steak, not looking at me. The light from the window was streeling across her face; I looked at the shirred skin around my mother’s eyes and realised she was starting to look her age.

‘Have you heard?’ I said. ‘Golden Boy is heading for the Golden Gate.’ I forked a pile of mash into my mouth and looked at Verity.

‘What are you on about?’ Verity poked at the gravy-drenched broccoli on her plate and shucked off her cardigan from her shoulders. ‘It’s abnormally hot in here.’ She looked at Robin. ‘What’s this, Rob? Are you going away somewhere too?’